queen excluder or no?

[boones_bee_nectar]

I have 4 hives, one of which is a recent swarm from one of the other three. The three older hives that came through the winter has had a slow buildup because of the weather I assume. I thought maybe it was lack of a good queen but they seem to be doing fine now.

The problem I have is the queen in all 3 doesn't seem to want to move out of the two medium supers to lay eggs in the deep. I have never had this problem before. So I went in to one today and found the queen in one of the upper supers and put her in the deep, placed a queen excluder on top and put the two medium supers back to force her to use the larger space in the bottom. Good idea or bad move? I figure if she is forced to use the bigger area, she may up the production.

The second hive, one I had made up my mind to requeen for lack of brood production (haven't yet), showed some signs of them trying to raise a queen as if they wanted to swarm. I wasn't able to find a queen in this hive because they were pretty fiery today (lack of queen maybe?), so I put a queen excluder on anyway below the two medium supers and that is also below the queen cells. My theory was, give it a week or so and if there was a queen hatched in the top, she would be trapped there by the queen excluder and I would know that I have a queen. If by chance the "old" queen was in the hive below the queen exluder then I have the opportunity to get rid of one of the two or both and put my own in as if I was requeening. Again is that a bad idea? Or will that be okay for a week or so to figure out what is happening with them. :scratch:

That's a lot of explaining but hopefully I said enough to get some good answers.

[Tom G. Laury]

Your best resource is experience. Keep doing just what you have been, trying this or that and seeing what you can see. Lots of opinions here on BS. ;)

[gmcharlie]

sound like the queen excluder plan is a decent one. done the same type of thing myself usuallyin a cell buider where I don't want a virgin queen killing my geed queen below.......

As for moving them down out of mediums... sometimes relocating them is the only way. if the deep is drawn good I put the quen down and unfilled super in the middle..... it allows the brood to hatch and get replaced with honey.

The other trick I do as long as its warm and there are enough bees, is to move that brood to the outside frames in the upper hive. screws up the queens brood patch and she is a bit more willing to give it up.

[Roland]

Make sure you have an upper entrance so that in case a queen hatches, she can fly and mate.

Roland

[dabeekeeper]

By all means be sure you have a hole as said. If she is not mated within a short time 7 to 10 days, I think it will be too late, she'll be sterile and useless.
:cry:

[Bizzybee]

Not to go off in a different direction but I had queens this year that were confined beyond 15 days. Early spring, solid rain in the 50's and temps dropping into the 40's with overcast on days without rain for more than 2 weeks after queens emerged. No eggs found for close to 30 days after birthday.

All are proud mothers of some dandy hives today. Will there be consequences later? I don't know but I have lost all faith in the 7 to 10 day rule after this season.

[wcubed]

Bizzybee:
Second that input. Have had them socked in by weather for more than two weeks. They mated and performed well.
Walt

[boones_bee_nectar]

Thanks for the feedback. It sounds like what I have done or attempting to do is not out the ordinary and sometimes necessary. I was hoping I wasn't doing something way out in left field. I'm going to let them sit for about a week or so and see what is going on with them then post what I find. I may just requeen them anyway to make sure I know what I have in the hive.

[jbford]

threw my excluders away.

couldn't coax the girls above them. bees stayed crowded and swarmed. took them off and all is well.

[gmcharlie]

Agreed, I HATE excluders, but ina case like this when your troubleshooting they can be of use. You might do the one thing I do and that is a "top entrance" to allow any potential virgin queen to mate.

You mentioned it so I assumed you were going to go back anf look in a week and see what you have.

[boones_bee_nectar]

threw my excluders away.

couldn't coax the girls above them. bees stayed crowded and swarmed. took them off and all is well.

With one deep and two mediums that are all theirs for the winter months, I typically don't use them either when I put my surplus supers on. Because in all reality, when a queen is laying really well like normally happens in a hive, and the honey flow is good, she isn't going to have a chance to lay eggs in those surplus honey supers because the workers have honey in them before she gets up there to lay eggs. So I'm with you, I stay away from them anymore.